Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Carving to Communicate : 2nd part of Scratching the surface...

Lest people confuse Henna(Mehendi) designs with Tattoos, let me rush and add that this distinction is similar to what they say about Sachin Tendulkar, when he makes anything less than a 100 runs.

They say Form is Temporary, Class is Permanent. Mehendi/Henna is temporary, Tattoos are permanent.

And this is about Tattoos. And their ability to function asdisseminaters and communicators of information.

Gerard Cote, of Texas A&M University, and Michael Pishko, of the chemical engineering department at Penn State University, have come up with, what can only be called the glowing diabetic tattoo. A special tattoo is inscribed on/in your skin. It is blood- glucose sensitive, and is scheduled to glow when your glucose levels change.My late mother-in-law, who lived in the days before disposable syringes would have been thrilled.

Dr Garry Hellerman, writing in Genetic Vaccines and Therapy, says research indicates that many vaccines could now be given in tattoo form. Tests indicate that tattoo vaccines generate 16 times more antibodies in you than normal pokes, and stuff looks more promising for vaccines for HPV and cervical cancer.

While all this is something that giveslong range tattoo benefits, there are some folks who don't have the patience.

Just in case you are unclear about his right or left brain proclivities, this guy has made good use of his bald state. Though constantly visualizing his dormant grey-red matter would be a bit traumatic. And I wouldn't fight to sit behind him in a lecture hall.

Here ---> is someone who thinks he needs to educate his doctor, about his muscle pain. I mean, we all know, BUT, Just in case the doctor gets confused about triceps brachia and the biceps brachia, you just land up, roll up your sleeves (if you have some), and point to the 3rd muscle fibre 6 inches above the elbow. Eureka!

A spectacularly cool device for "vein contrast enhancement" called the VeinViewer, , is now in use throughout the Memphis-based Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare system.

We have something cheaper. Not to be outdone, and probably to help in his med school Viva exams, this guy has his entire arm veins blood supply displayed. They ask you a question and you simply point. The guy above too, probably had this ulterior motive in mind for the Muscles exam.

Next time you see a med student wearing Bermudas at his Vivas, and looking down and depressed, you know its not true. He is actually checking to see the answer to the question about the left coronary artery,, the pulmonary vein. and the Bundle of His.

(It might entertain folks to know that in my language, Bundle is another word for Fib.)

And just in case someone needs to give someone's backside a much wished kick, you can now pick and choose which of this gent's vertebrae and ribs will take the load. No need for Xrays. Just point and kick. This is the WYSIWYG method, the last G stands for " give" and not "get" . (WUSIWYG =What You See Is What You Give/Get).

Like late ex-President Nixon was fond of saying, this guy is really making things "perfectly clear"...... just in case you thought the heart was on the doctors left, in lieu of your left, this needs no explanatory words. Very useful for folks thinking of making an incision in your chest to operate on you.

Should you decide to have that operation.......A great example of how tattoos can help when the surgeon says, "make an incision of 6 inches....." ....never thought these medical types had a mathematical side to them. But the key question is, does the other hand display tattoos in the metric system ?

Is it time to look for math tattoos ?

Here is a functionally disabled fellow. He has rested , but not before showing the fist with the function f(x) = 1/x. So apt. for someone whose life may have just turned upside down ....

A fine way to postulate the theory of infinitely integrated love..... Of course, no one has ever found the solution to this problem, although everyone from Afghanistan to Zanzibar is trying, even the Nobel folks are trying, on the off chance that they can get the prize themselves .....

A great way to fudge your electrical engineering exams. The "circuits" are permanent, and the examiner cannot remove the stuff."without breaking your arm"

. A great way to remain charged at all times

You know, I have always been intrigued by the number "pi", shown tattooed alongside, divided by 2. What tickles me no end, is that the word "pi" in my language, Marathi, means "leg, and this is so fitting, that one single leg in tattooed with "pi divided by 2" ! How they would tattoo the whole "pi" is a different problem, but since pi = 3.14 something, we can talk about it on 3/14 which is, what else, "international PI day ie March 14.....!"

Some people with lots of time calculated the value of pi to 100 decimal places. Some other people with more time, tattooed this value on their entire arm . It seems at first glance you can only see 73 decimal places. .......Now that "mine eyes have seen " seen the 74th decimal place, I can die ..........

And finally Maxwell, who postulated the equations for the speed of light in a dilelectric medium (OK, I know you all know about them, but accuracy is important , like in tattooing) , must be feeling positively sorry for this guy who tattooed the equations, and their effect in terms of something from Genesis,cutting in too hard, hoping that his girlfriend taking the exam sitting behind him, would, maybe , finally, see the light.....Pass the soframycin, will ya ?

There are so many ways one can do complicated subjects, aided by tattoos. Folks doing geography can tattoo maps to remember that Urals are not in Nebraska, the Taj Mahal is in Agra and not Mumbai, And Alaska is near to Russia, but you cant see there even if you are Palin; the cooking and eating types can tattoo caloric values and obese figures on their palms. Physics Folks can tattoo equations on their back and sit for a price, in front of those who fool around throughout the semseter. David Beckham can Tatoo his wife's picture on his back, and offer a buy-one-get-one-free deal, even if he returns to Spain and she sticks to LA. All corporate cheaters can be tattooed with the dollar amount that they defrauded the country with.

Well I will never look at a tattoo the same way again. Truly. This post was a masterpiece. I just cannot imagine why anyone would want to do the stuff they do. As for David Beckham he looks terrible now as he has tattoos all over him. Surely the cricketers are not into this kind of body art. They would have too much sense would they not? Go on you can tell me, would you ever get a tatoo, an educational one of course.

Vinita I always wonder about how much time, and money, these people can dedicate to doing these totally pointless tattoos.....

Another Kiran Yes, the pi/2 was really nice.... and it just occurred to me that if he stood with his two tattoed pi/2 "pi's" together, it would resemble pi ....:-) (They used call these PJ's, they still do)

Darlene If I were the prof, I'd just tattoo a big zero on the guy and send him home for cheating.....

Kavi What the ladies in my previous post do is beautiful. There is no sense of exhibitionism there. Just personal enjoyment of a quiet kind. But these medical types are too much.

Lilly I'd be running faster than Usain Bolt if I saw someone coming to tattoo me. No I dont even like to put too much Henna on my hands as is sometimes done in weddings of close relatives. But I do admire those henna designs and the artistry. And about the cricketers, I am not too sure.Their outfits dont give them too much scope to display. Though I sometimes think the stuff Symonds puts around his mouth (white) makes me think of tattoos. ....

June I absolutely agree with you. And I was totally shocked when I first came across these medical and maths type tattoos. These were a few of the ordinary ones.....